Mikhail Tals Best Games 2

The World Champion

By

Tibor Karolyi

Quality Chess
www.qualitychess.co.uk
 Contents
Key to symbols used & Bibliography 4
Preface 5
Acknowledgements 6

1960 7
1961 67
1962 103
1963 125
1964 149
1965 181
1966 207
1967 235
1968 259
1969 283
1970 295
1971 317

Summary of Results 340

Tournament and Match Wins 341
Classification 343
Game Index by Page Number 344
Game Index by Tals Opponents 348
Alphabetical Game Index Non-Tal games 350
Name Index 351
 Preface to Volume 2
The World Champion is the middle volume of our three-part investigation into Mikhail Tals life
and career. We will rejoin the story after the climactic events of The Magic of Youth, where Tals
superb score of 20/28 at the 1959 Candidates tournament earned him the right to challenge
Botvinnik for the world title.

Tals 1960 match against Botvinnik was the most eagerly anticipated world championship match
in decades. Not only was it a clash between generations; it also featured two strong personalities
with diametrically opposing chess philosophies. Tal stunned the chess world (not to mention
Botvinnik) with his ferocious attacking style in a way unlike any other player before him.

Tals career probably featured the most dramatic ups and downs of any world champion. After
losing the rematch to Botvinnik he was still one of the strongest players in the world, but his
performance was hampered by extensive health problems. Tals maverick personality and
bohemian lifestyle made him a fan favourite, but were not necessarily conducive to success over
the chessboard.

Despite the health problems and other challenges he faced, Tal remained one of the worlds best
and most popular players throughout the 1960s and early 70s. I hereby invite you to turn the
page and enjoy the next phase of the story of Tals life and magical chess ability.

Tibor Karolyi
Budapest, June 2015
58 The World Champion

GAME 10
Burkhard Malich Mikhail Tal

Leipzig Olympiad 1960


1.d4 c5 2.e3 f6 3.c4 g6 4.f3 g7 5.e2
00 6.dxc5 a6 7.00 xc5 8.c3 b6
9.c2 b7 10.b3 d5 11.b2 dxc4 12.xc4
b8 13.h3 a6 14.ac1 b5 15.e2 c8
16.b1 b4 17.d1 e4 18.a1


22...a4!!
Tal does not bother to defend the knight, and
simply goes full steam ahead on the queenside.

23.xc5
White has nothing better than taking
the piece. If 23.bxa4? xa4 24.b1 fxe4!
25.xg7 d2 Black wins.
23...xc5 24.xc5 axb3 25.a4
If 25.b2? d7 26.e3 xa2 Black regains
the piece and wins easily.
18...b7!
Malich has played the opening passively, and 25...bxa3
Tal already has the more active position. Before Tals idea prevails: his mighty connected
doing anything else, he increases the pressure passed pawns are irresistible.
on the a8-h1 diagonal in order to limit the
movement of the f3-knight. 26.d4
26.xa3? a7 wins.
19.e1 a5
With six of his opponents eight pieces on

the back rank, Tal prepares to attack on the
queenside.
20.f3 f5 21.e4?!
Malich plays the move that Tal provoked.
He should have preferred 21.c4 a4 22.e4
d7 23.b1 when White is still struggling,

but is better off than in the game.
21...e6 22.d4



 1960 Burkhard Malich Mikhail Tal 59

26...d8!

Malich must have been hoping to return
his extra piece to eliminate Blacks queenside
pawns. Tal refuses to allow it, and gets ready to

eliminate the bishop on d4.

27.d3 c4 28.f4 xe2 29.xe2 b2
Black can also win by slower means, but
Tal decides to force the issue. It would be
interesting to know whether he played it
because he was certain he was winning, or

whether in fact he was unsure but could not
find anything better. In any case, his play in
the game makes a convincing impression.

35.d1 e5 36.d8 f8 37.c1 h5
38.c8 h7 39.a8 g7 40.d5 c3
30.xb2 41.d8 h4 42.d1 e5
I was unable to find out when the game was
adjourned. It is interesting that Tal was happy
to exchange queens. An alternative winning
plan was to set up an attack with his queen
and bishop on the dark squares.

43.d4 xd4 44.xd4 e5 45.d5 f6 46.g3

Malich sensibly tries to swap pawns. Please
note that Tals bishop would be the wrong
colour to win in the event that he was left with
only the h-pawn.


30...xd4! 31.xd4 axb2 32.d1 b6
33.h1 b1=
Tal chooses to cash in the b-pawn to pick

up the white knight. Keeping the pawn
with 33...xe4 34.fxe4 xd4 would have
reached a different type of winning endgame;

alternatively, 33...h5 34.e2 e3 35.d8
f8 36.b1 xe2 37.b8 leads to the same
type of position as in the game.

34.xb1 xd4
Blacks material advantage is enough to bring 46...g5 47.g2 b4 48.f4!
home the full point. There is still some work to Malich keeps exchanging pawns. This is
do, but Tal makes no mistake in the endgame. certainly a better try than 48.b5 e1, when
60 The World Champion

Black easily wins by posting his bishop on g3 a) The prosaic 53...xh3 54.g4 f2
and transferring his knight to f4. 55.xh4 xe4 reaches a winning endgame,
as the Nalimov tablebase confirms.
48...exf4 49.gxf4 gxf4 50.f3 g5
51.xf4 g6! b) It would be nice to think that Tal would
51...xh3?? would be a blunder due have found the following much prettier
to: 52.g4! (52.f5? f2 53.d7 h6 solution: 53...g3 54.g4
54.xf6 h3 wins for Black) 52...f2
(52...g5 53.e5! draws easily) 53.f3! Whites
king traps the knight. (53.xh4? c3! 54.c5
[54.g3 xe4] 54...xe4 wins) 53...e1

54.e2 h3 55.h5 g6 56.h8 White
draws.

52.d3
52.e5 f5 wins.



54...f7! and White has to give up his rook.

53...e6
01
In the penultimate round Tal was White
against Ghitescu. Tal got a clear advantage from
the opening, but misplayed the position and
was even in some danger of becoming worse.
However, the Romanian player went wrong
before the time control and Tal capitalized.
The final round took place on the 8th of
52...e1!
With this move Tal wins one of Whites November, the day before Tals birthday. He
pawns by force. asked the captain to be rested, but the request
was in vain, and Tal had to face Penrose of
53.d8?? England with the black pieces. With hindsight,
With one of his pawns about to drop off, perhaps he should have played a safer opening
Malich desperately tries to activate the rook; than the Modern Benoni. A pragmatist such as
his blunder may also have been influenced by Karpov would adapt his approach according to
time trouble. how much energy he had, and play for a solid
draw when he needed to but not Tal. In a
53.d7 would not have offered any serious complicated middlegame Penrose sacrificed a
resistance either, and in fact Black has two pawn for the initiative. Tal got a worse position
ways to win: and blundered a piece. He fought on for as
long as he could, but eventually had to resign.
 1960 61

Thus Tal suffered his first loss as World 8.db5!

Champion. The defeat cost him the individual Tals novelty was repeated only sporadically
gold medal for performance on top board, for over a decade, but it started to catch
although he still finished with the second- on in the mid-1970s. It has since become
highest score for Board 1, and the highest established as a dangerous main line, and
among those whose teams qualified for the has been tested in many hundreds of games,
top group after the preliminaries. Botvinnik proving once again that Tal was far ahead of
performed well on the second board, and his time. I find it surprising that Tal does not
Fischers percentage on Board 1 for the USA refer to this game in his book.
was just slightly below Tals. Korchnoi had once played 8.f4 against Tal
in the 1956 Soviet Championship, so it is
*** possible that Tals subsequent analysis of that
game was what sparked his new idea.
After the Olympiad Tal was invited to perform 8...a6 9.d6 xd6 10.xd6 f6 11.f4
a simultaneous exhibition against the top 11.e3 has since become established as the
Czechoslovakian juniors. The opposition main line.
was strong, with future grandmasters such as 11...f7 12.a3 e7 13.e2 00 14.00 e5
Hort, Smejkal, Jansa and Plachetka among the 15.e3 b6 16.f3 b8 17.fd1 f5 18.d5
twenty participants. The format was unusual, xd5 19.xd5 f6 20.f4 d6
as the first thirty moves were played via radio
in 1960; then, in January of 1961, Tal travelled
to Prague to finish the games. Tal did not play
his normal openings, and experimented with

1.c4 or 1.d4 in several games. Even in his
1.e4 games, he would try out openings such
as the Kings Gambit, although on the whole
he seemed to take a practical approach for the
simul, and did not play as sharply as normal.

Interestingly, this simul saw Tal make one of
the most important novelties of his career:
21.xd6!
1.c4 f6 2.c3 e6 3.e4 c5 4.e5 g8 5.f3 With this sweet move Tal obtained a clear
c6 6.d4 cxd4 7.xd4 xe5 advantage in Tal Falta, Prague (radio simul)
1960, although a later error, combined with
his opponents stubborn defence, caused the
game to end in a draw.

Tals performance against the best
Czechoslovakian juniors was impressive: he
was unbeaten, with eleven wins and nine
draws. I asked grandmaster Vlastimil Jansa
to share his memories from the event. Here is
what he wrote:


62 The World Champion

Yes, it was a big event in Prague! Mikhail

Tal was very popular at that time; he was still
GAME 11
young, and of course I was even younger. The
first part of this famous simul and the moves Mikhail Tal Wolfgang Unzicker
from all twenty games were announced on Stockholm 1960/61
our radio (two moves daily), and in all the
newspapers. It received a lot of attention 1.e4 e5 2.f3 c6 3.b5 a6 4.a4 f6
almost everybody knew about it in our country. 5.00 e7 6.e1 b5 7.b3 d6 8.c3 00
The concluding part of the games took place 9.h3 b8 10.d4 bd7 11.c4 c6 12.c5 c7
in the beautiful Lucerna Hall in the centre of 13.cxd6 xd6 14.g5 c5 15.dxc5 xc5
Prague (close to the venue of the 1931 Prague 16.c3 b7 17.c1 b6 18.e2 fe8
Chess Olympiad). There were many hundreds
of spectators; the luxury hall was completely
full. I played on the first board it was great!
Misha Tal was friendly towards us as well as
the spectators. I was happy to make a draw,
and was even happier six years later in Sarajevo
when I managed to beat him in a normal
tournament game.


***
Towards the end of 1960 Tal played a semi-
rapid game (one hour each) against Gideon
Stahlberg. Tal had the white pieces and won
easily. His final tournament of the year,
which started in December 1960 and ran into 19.d5!
January 1961, was in Stockholm. In the first Tal forces an exchange which allows him to
round Tal was White against Johannessen, and uncover a weakness in Blacks position.
after a dubious pawn sacrifice he was lucky to
equalize. A later mistake led to a lost position 19...xd5
for Tal, but his Norwegian opponent went 19...xd5 20.xd5 is also problematic
wrong and allowed Tal to escape with a draw. for Black: 20...xd5 (20...d4 21.xd4
In the second round Tal exploited Nilssons exd4 22.xb7 xb7 23.xd4 wins a pawn)
dubious play and won convincingly. 21.xd5 a7 22.d1! An important
subtlety. (The automatic 22.d2? would let
Tals next opponent was Wolfgang Unzicker, the advantage slip after 22...b6!) 22...f8
who was known as the strongest amateur in 23.xe5 White is a pawn up for nothing.
the world at that time. Unzicker was indeed 20.xd5 ad8?!
one of Germanys top players for two decades, 20...ac8 is a better try, although the
and he faced eight world champions from accurate continuation 21.ec2 a5 22.e1!
Euwe to Karpov. In sixty-eight games against c7 23.d3 ec8 24.xc5 xc5 25.e2
them, he scored four wins, forty-one draws fd7 26.e3 leaves Black horribly tied up by
and twenty-three losses. the pin.
 1960 Mikhail Tal Wolfgang Unzicker 63

Unzickers move looks like a logical attempt to 23...a4 24.b3 xe4 gives White a choice
exert pressure on the d-file, but he misses Tals between 25.xf7 and 25.g5, both of which
chance to raid on the black king. win easily.




+
O

B


21.ec2! 24.xf7!
With this and the next few accurate moves, Tals two previous tempo-gaining moves
Tal uncovers a weakness when it looks like were designed to set up this finale, which
none exists. opens up Blacks king decisively.

21...e7 24...xf7 25.b3 f8

21...c8? would be too late because of 22.b4.
22.c6!
Tal wins a big tempo and opens a crucial line
for his queen.
22...a5
22...b8 can be refuted by: 23.xf6! xf6
(23...xf6 24.xf7 xf7 25.b3 g6 of the year.
26.h4 h5 27.f3 leads to mate, as Tal 10
points out) Tal writes that he was planning
24.xa6, but 24...b6 enables Black to
fight on for a while at least. Had the position
occurred on the board, I expect he would have
found 24.c7! or 24.b3! e7 25.xa6, either
of which would have won more clinically.
23.d2!
The bishop vacates the g5-square.
23...b4
25...g6 26.h4 h5 27.f3 leads to a
quick mate. Unzicker placed his king on the
other available square, but resigned without
waiting for 26.g5. This game was played
on New Years Eve, and what a way to finish
a fantastic year! Tal not only won the World
Championship match by a convincing margin,
but continued to play great chess for the rest
The New Year started well for Tal, as he
outplayed Stahlberg on the white side of
a French Defence in extremely impressive
fashion. You can find a large part of the game
on page 106 of the first volume, in the notes to
Tal Veder from 1951.
Tal followed this with a draw in a sharp
Kings Indian against Uhlmann. He then
overpowered Nielsen before taking a quick,
possibly prearranged, draw with Kotov.
64 The World Champion

Tals next two games were both Sicilians. In round 8 Tal was White against Martin Johansson,
and made a standard d5 sacrifice in a promising situation. Johansson did not touch the knight
but he fell into trouble all the same, and Tal brought him down with a direct attack. In the next
round Tal faced Burehall, who reacted to the Sicilian by going for a closed system. Burehall tried
to mount an attack in the middlegame, but Tal kept things under control and established a
dominating position which he converted to victory.
In the 10th round Tal was White against Book. He failed to get an opening advantage and later
became worse, but his opponent failed to capitalize and later went wrong, enabling Tal to win
and preserve a half-point lead over Uhlmann before the last round. In order to guarantee sole
first place, Tal needed to defeat Erik Lundin with Black. A fairly peaceful Sicilian ensued, but Tal
obtained the advantage of the bishop pair, which he skilfully exploited in the endgame.
Tal thus won the tournament with the superb score of 9/11. His White openings were not
particularly impressive, and his opponents might have played better in some games, but Tal still
played well and took his chances when he needed to. Credit must also go to Uhlmann, whose
score of 9/11 would have been more than enough to win most tournaments.

***

1960 was a magical year for Tal. He not only crushed Botvinnik to become the youngest
World Champion in chess history, but also produced some of the most impressive tournament
performances of any champion in the months after winning the title. After doing some research
on this topic, my opinion is that Topalovs tournament results in 2005 come closest to matching
Tals achievements. Karpov was also extremely impressive in 1975, but he (admittedly through no
fault of his own) was not burdened by a match against Fischer, so he was able to put much more
of his energy into tournaments.
 1960 Summary
Tal played a total of fifty-five games in 1960. (This summary includes the entirety of the Stockholm
tournament which ran into the early days of the new year, but excludes the Prague simultaneous
exhibition.)

Tal played twenty-eight games with the white pieces, scoring nineteen wins, eight draws and one
defeat: a staggeringly impressive tally, especially considering that eleven of those games took place
in a world title match.
1.e4 remained Tals main choice. He had the most trouble against the Caro-Kann, although he
still achieved a healthy plus score of +3 =3 1. Once Botvinniks main defence is taken out of the
equation, Tals 1.e4 results from 1960 are stunning: from a total of eleven games on the white side
of the Ruy Lopez, Sicilian and French, Tal dropped just half a point and won the other ten games.
Tal also scored an impressive six wins and four draws in the closed openings.

Tal had twenty-seven games with the black pieces. He won ten of them, drew fifteen and lost only
two. Here too, his percentage score is superb, considering the difficulty of a world championship
match. Especially impressive is his score (+5 =3 0) against 1.e4. Against the closed openings Tal
had five wins, twelve draws and two defeats: a fine score, bearing in mind that ten of these games
were against Botvinnik. Tal mainly used the Nimzo-Indian, Modern Benoni and Kings Indian,
all of which were trusty weapons for him.

1960 Results

Tal Botvinnik World Championship match: Won 128 (+6 =13 2)

West Germany USSR match: 7/8 (+7 =1 0)
Leipzig Olympiad (Board 1): 11/15 (+8 =6 1)
Stockholm (1st place): 9/11 (+8 =3 0)

Total 73.6% (+29 =23 3)

Wins Draws Losses